


Ardent Admirer

by lindoreda



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Alternate Scene, Confessions, F/M, Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood Spoilers, Introspection, PWP, So much talking, Vaginal Fingering, consent is not dubious but could be more explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-24
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-03-16 12:56:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28956804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lindoreda/pseuds/lindoreda
Summary: Awakening after the events at Ghimlyt Dark, the Warrior of Light decides, for once, to use her words.
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel/Warrior of Light
Kudos: 58





	Ardent Admirer

**Author's Note:**

> It feels like lately whenever I write something new, I achieve new heights in self-indulgence. Maybe I've found the pinnacle?
> 
> Anyway, here's a very smutty alternate version of Post Ghimlyt Dark, with my WoL Sumire, who is a female Raen Au Ra. If you haven't started Shadowbringers, beware spoilers. It very much assumes you have seen and remember the original scene.
> 
> Also, while it was beta-read, this has not been edited to my usual standards so beware stray commas. They travel in packs.

It was the smell Sumire noticed first as she came back to her body. Woodsmoke and armor oil, incongruous with the dark void from her dream, and what had come before. She remembered burning sands and imperial blasting powder. Sweat and blood, and everywhere screaming. Yet it was quiet here, wherever ‘here’ was. What distant voices she could detect were in the hushed tones reserved for-

Her eyes snapped open. Ishgard. She was in Ishgard. But how? She struggled to put the pieces together, but all she could remember was the Ascian in Zenos’s body, about to strike her down as the pain in her head rose to a deafening crescendo. If she had collapsed like the other Scions, why was she not with them in the Rising Stones?

If she had awoken, did that mean they had as well?

But it was not one of the other Scions by her bed, but Honoroit. Nor was it a Scion who appeared after Honoroit ran off, but Ser Aymeric. He smiled as if certain she would wake up, far more broadly than the circumstances seemed to merit. She had lost, and the other Scions likely remained in slumber. She might be alive, but she was alone again.

She could believe that Estinien would leave her with the Ishgardian Chirurgeons, as Ser Aymeric explained, and that they would have known her condition was different from the other Scions. For all that he had left his home and his title behind, he trusted Ser Aymeric and Ishgard more than any other faction of the Alliance. But what that didn’t explain was why she had been conveyed from Gyr Abania to Coerthas. Mor Dhona was closer, even if Ser Aymeric called Ishgard her home. Moreover, while she didn’t remember this room, it wasn’t part of Fortemps Manor. If anything, it felt like-

Sumire breathed in sharply. “Is this the Congregation of Our Knights Most Heavenly?”

Aymeric nodded. “It seemed the safest place. The chirurgeons could barely attend you at the battlefield without being overset by your ardent admirers.”

And she needed a safe place, didn’t she? She had been promised a reckoning, and it would be trivial for her enemies to conceal themselves in a crowd. The thought struck her like a physical blow, or perhaps that was merely the imprint of Zenos’s gloves on her chest. She’d come within ilms of death, all because of a voice in her head that wouldn’t let her go until she went to the Crystal Tower.

What did they want from her? But it was a pointless question. Everyone wanted the same thing: her help, with what they believed a just and righteous cause. Even those who sought her death wanted her help, in a way. She would best help them by getting out of the way.

Sumire couldn’t deny that the prospect of entering the headquarters of the Temple Knights with both Ser Aymeric and Lucia in residence would deter all but the most determined assassin. But any of the alliance leaders could have offered similar protection if they thought it necessary. And the Rising Stones was hardly the nest of Crystal Braves anymore. If Alphinaud and Alisaie were safe there, so was she.

“Why Ishgard?” she managed, aware the silence had gone on too long. Aware of Aymeric’s brilliant eyes tracking her every movement, as if he understood the unspoken thought each movement betrayed. “Why not Gridania, or Mor Dhona?”

She felt the urge to remind him that Ishgard was far, that the time when she would come here as a matter of course was long gone. But he knew that. He had to. Even when she came to Ishgard on Manufactory business, she never saw him. There were no more invitations to dinner, no more offers of wine. Once, she had thought-

But she’d been mistaken, clearly. Her presence here now was not a sign of sentiment, but some kind of political maneuver. Just as well that she had no head for politics.

Yet the confidence slipped from his demeanor, leaving behind an embarrassed man in his late twenties, unable to meet her eyes. A far cry from the Lord Speaker, or the Lord Commander of the Temple Knights.

“Forgive me, I… When Estinien appeared with your prone form, I confess I found it difficult to think clearly. I waited only for the chirurgeons to confirm you were not in danger before removing to Ishgard.”

While the battle was likely still raging, she realized with a start. Had he carried her himself? In what position? If only the Echo- No. She resisted the urge to slap the thought out of herself, but only just.

“When you mentioned ardent admirers troubling the chirurgeons, I hardly thought you meant yourself.” She mustered her teasing smile, but the faint blush that lit Ser Aymeric’s cheeks suggested it was all too true. Sumire didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so discomfited, and she’d seen him fresh from his father’s dungeons.

“Did you not?” He did not look away, despite his clear embarrassment, a trait she had always admired. Few seemed able to hold her gaze for long, whether because of the alienness of her limbal ring, or something else they saw. “I fear I have made little secret of my regard for you. Indeed, I had begun to wonder if I had made a nuisance of myself, my presence endured out of mere politeness.”

Her ears were still ringing from the headache. Not from Ser Aymeric saying out loud the thing they had been dancing around. The thing she hadn’t noticed until what she had thought was a dinner party turned out to be dinner, despite Thancred’s much earlier assertion that Ser Aymeric might be in love with her. That had been easy to dismiss. She was forever fielding requests like the Grand Melee, and Thancred had been new to Ishgard at the time. He didn’t know how it had been.

Dinner had forced her reassess, as had the pointed attention that followed. But then, nothing. She had journeyed to Ala Mhigo and thence to Hingashi and Doma, and the silence had been deafening. A letter, even a short note, would have been enough. But there had been nothing, not even a message left at Fortemps Manor during her brief returns to assist Hilda’s Hounds.

Hilda’s Hounds, which she had helped for his sake, a soft voice cried out. To protect what he had given everything to build. And yet he thought he had been a nuisance.

“I have learned what politicians and their words are worth. How flattery conceals poor choices, and is so often followed by a request to clean up the mess.” She looked down at her hands, at the worn fabric off her gloves. When had they gotten this way? It felt like she’d only bought them a few days ago. “I did not think you could be sincere until our time in Ishgard came to an end.”

There was more she should say, but she couldn’t find the words. Words were not her strong suit, after all. At times, she felt like little more than a weapon.

But Aymeric had asked her what she wanted for herself. Even if she hadn’t been able to answer then, and probably still couldn’t, it was the question that mattered, and the consideration behind it. He saw her as a real person, not merely the legend, the Warrior of Light. He knew well the weight of duty, and the need to exist beyond it.

When Sumire dared to look up, he was still watching her with rapt attention, his body angled toward her but still too far to touch. Neither taking offense at her assessment nor relaxing. She forced herself not to look away.

“Full glad was I when you welcomed me home, all those moons ago,” she admitted softly. “I feared you could hear the frantic pounding of my heart.”

“So there is aught that you fear,” he said, surprise soon replaced by one of his brilliant smiles. Sumire dared to lean closer, even as it forced her to crane her neck.

“Yes. Has it cost me your respect?”

“No.” Aymeric cradled her jaw with one hand, the other taking her hand and placing it over his heart. “I believe I have often shared that fear.”

“I can only feel armor,” Sumire said, her laugh sounding breathless to her own ears as he moved her hand to his neck, pressing her fingers to a pulsepoint with his own.

“And now?” His eyes flicked to her lips, and Sumire parted them unconsciously, trying to focus on what he’d said. On the thrumming of his heartbeat beneath her fingers, and not the sparks rising where he stroked her cheek with his thumb.

He didn’t look nervous. His eyes were deep pools of longing, threatening to pull her under. And it didn’t seem a bad place to drown, safe in the arms of a man who had never looked at her and seen a monster. For too long, her body had served only as a weapon, honed by every struggle into something unrecognizable. It had given and received pain only, pleasure a thing of the increasingly distant past. Yet somehow, he saw something else, betrayed by the rapid beating of his heart and those hungry eyes. Sumire desperately wanted to be what he saw, if only for a brief moment.

She could not find words to answer him. But she had always found action more effective anyway.

Sumire closed the remaining ilms between them, crushing her mouth to Aymeric’s and swallowing the soft gasp he made. Heat exploded in her chest as he responded in kind, his lips sliding over hers with an almost frantic need. He would not be gentle, she realized as he pulled her onto his lap, his tongue gliding between her lips as if it belonged there. Not unless she asked it of him. They were both of them warriors, restrained by heavy burdens. Molded by public expectations. Desperately seeking a place where they need hold nothing back.

A moan slipped free at the thought, and she felt Aymeric shudder beneath her. His lips left hers and she leaned forward, trying to chase them, but he held her in place with one hand buried in her hair. His lips traced the line of her jaw before caressing the tender flesh of her neck, his other hand beginning a slow journey down her spine. Everywhere he touched seemed to ignite, and it was only when his hand reached the base of her tail did Sumire remember where they were.

“Aymeric,” she began, more than half moan. Not good enough. She tried again, giving his ear a light tweak. He pulled back the slightest bit, eyes hazy and half-lidded, lips still grazing her neck. “Did Honoroit go to inform Lord Edmont that I awoke? Will he be on his way?”

His eyes widened as awareness filtered back in. “He should have already arrived.”

“He awaits the Warrior of Light outside,” Lucia called from somewhere behind Aymeric. Sumire ducked her head on instinct, as if there was anyone else she could have been under the circumstances.

“Thank you, Lucia,” Aymeric replied, voice surprisingly even. “Pray inform him that she will join him momentarily.”

Sumire waited until she heard Lucia’s clanking footsteps fade, the door closing behind her, before removing her face from Aymeric’s shoulder. “Should I take it by Lucia’s lack of reaction that this is a common occurrence?”

Aymeric said nothing, and on looking up, Sumire found his cheeks suffused with a vivid red blush. A laugh tore free from her throat, and she couldn’t resist planting a kiss on one of those warm cheeks.

“How many moons before you dare make eye contact with her again?” she asked, disentangling herself from him and straightening her clothes.

“Many, I fear,” he replied with a sigh, shaking his head. “Forgive me, I might have given more thought to our present location.”

Sumire snorted. She might be ever-so-slightly embarrassed, but she also knew half of Ishgard would give much to trade places with her. The daughter of a High House caught in such a position would have cause to press things directly to the Vault. “Mayhap you would consider a more private location once I convince Lord Edmont of my health. Borel Manor, or a room in the Forgotten Knight.”

She made for the door, not daring to look at him. If his ardor cooled and good sense returned, that was his right, of course. But they were promised no tomorrows. If she fell into the same slumber affecting the other Scions without seeing him bare, what a terrible loss that would be.

His voice was closer than expected when he replied, “My home is ever yours.”

Sudden warmth kindled in her chest, gentler than the fire his lips had summoned. Home. Was she even allowed such a thing? A place to return, if not a place to stay while the world had need of her. She could not deny the appeal, whether or not he had meant it that way. It was Aymeric. He was ever sincere in his grand pronouncements.

So she smiled. “Then I shall endeavor not to keep you waiting.”

\-----------------

It was snowing as Sumire made the solitary walk to Borel Manor. Not a noteworthy fact in Ishgard perhaps, but it was easy to forget after her long sojourns in Ala Mhigo and Doma. How long had it been since she’d last been truly cold? She wouldn’t say she missed it exactly, but she would take snow over the driving sands any day.

And when snow melted, she always felt warmer than she had before. For all the supposed inhospitality of Ishgard, it had that effect on her.

Sumire shook her head, hurrying her steps. Ishgard was not an easy place to live. And as little as she cared for the opinions of the High Houses, Aymeric had to live and work with them. Birth and wedlock and things of that nature still mattered far too much in an Ishgard that knew the truth. Best not to linger, and cause talk.

The street was empty and quiet as she approached Borel Manor, the houses lit softly from within. Cozy-looking. Sumire shivered as she awaited a response to her knock.

She didn’t have to wait long. Yet It wasn’t Aymeric’s steward who opened the door, but Aymeric himself, divested of his armor. His mouth parted ever so slightly, somehow surprised to see her. A look he so often wore, she realized as she looked up at him. He never seemed fully able to believe she was actually in front of him.

“Does the Lord Speaker answer his own door now?” she teased, and he stepped back, letting her in. 

“I have given my staff the night off,” he told her, recovering his composure as he always did in the time it took her to close the door. “Should you require tea, or something more substantial, my culinary abilities shall have to suffice.”

Sumire had heard rumors. Whispers from knights thinking themselves unobserved, suggesting that their Lord Commander is actually a talented culinarian. She couldn’t help but be appalled by the idea that it could be true. He must have some mortal defect. Elsewise, it was enough to have one believing in Halone.

Food was the furthest thing from her mind, though. Sumire could feel the snow melting in her hair, the occasional icy rivulet running down her temple, or the back of her neck. And as she looked up at Aymeric, she caught his eyes tracking a bead of moisture down her cheek. Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised a hand, brushing the water away from her scales with his thumb.

Sumire shivered, skin and scales prickling at his touch. “I’m half frozen. But I don’t believe tea will do.”

Aymeric’s smile was half breathless, half amused. “No? What would milady prefer?”

Sumire stepped closer, standing on tiptoes to wrap her arms around his neck. A difficult feat with their difference in stature, and she willed herself not to wobble. Dratted Elezen. They should come with their own step-stools.

“You seem warm enough,” she said, craning her neck to look up at him. “Mayhap you would be willing to share, Ser.”

His hands came to rest at her waist, then settled more firmly, lifting her off her feet completely. Sumire bit down on a squawk, her heart skipping a beat at the sudden illusion of weightlessness. He could carry her with one arm, she thought, almost deliriously. His sword must weigh nearly as much as she did.

Aymeric’s kiss was slower this time, thorough and unhurried. He kissed as though he intended to ignite every part of her ilm by ilm, with nothing more than his lips and tongue. Sumire melted into him, arms around his neck loosening as she surrendered any pretense of supporting herself. 

His eyes burned with carefully banked hunger when he pulled away. “Better?”

Sumire floundered, trying to pick up the thread of the conversation amidst the haze of desire. Staring up at Aymeric, she couldn’t help but think he looked very pleased with himself indeed.

Taking advantage of her new position, she rubbed the tip of her nose along the sharp edge of his ear, grinning when he breathed in sharply. “I’m afraid not. Mayhap you might convey me to somewhere warmer than the front hall.”

Aymeric studied her for a moment, then said, “Pray forgive the liberty,” and lifted her higher, settling her in the crook of one arm. A giddy sort of thrill ran through her at being proven correct.

Unbidden, she remembered Aymeric insisting that he accompany them to slay Nidhogg in the Aery. His desperation, as if despite rising to heights none might have expected of him, he still had something to prove. His frustration when Estinien had reminded him of his duty to defend the city, should they fail. She wondered if he had ever truly allowed himself to be selfish, or if the chains of duty lay as heavy ever.

“You asked me once,” she began as he carried her through the house, “what I wanted for myself. I had no opportunity to answer, but I wonder if anyone has ever asked you that question.”

Aymeric’s lips parted, eyes widening in surprise. “You answer with a question of your own, then?”

“I have no answer yet,” she admitted with a soft laugh. “But I appreciated being asked.”

He smiled ruefully. “I suppose peace and stability for Ishgard are invalid answers, if I’m to follow the same guidelines.”

“I’m afraid so.”

He didn’t hesitate, running the fingers of his free hand through her hair. “To fight at the side of the one I love would be enough. And I have been fortunate enough to do so on several occasions. Mayhap it would run counter to the desire for peace to hope for another opportunity.” He looked at her with a strange, hopeless sort of adoration that made her breath catch in her throat. “But even so.”

Sumire thought she might have her own answer, a hope she dared not give voice to. A place, or a person, to call home. Who better than the literal knight in shining armor, who wanted not to save her from her fate, but share it?

She couldn’t wait until they reached whatever room he had decided on. She seized his jaw and kissed him hungrily, no longer content with being languidly teased. He made a soft sound, almost an entreaty, but for what Sumire did not know. It was her only warning before he had her against the wall, caging her with his body as he lavished her mouth with feverish kisses.

She was fire and light, bright and burning. Liable to combust where he touched, whether from the grip of his hands on her thighs, or the trail of sparks his lips left behind as they explored her mouth, her collarbone, the places where skin and scales met. Her breathing was ragged and uneven, as if she’d fought several primals in succession, but his was no easier.

Too many layers, she thought as he nosed down the neckline of her dress, chasing a pattern of scales. His coat was too thick, practically another suit of armor. Warmer, at least, but equally impenetrable.

“I want- I want to feel you,” she panted, writhing under his determined assault. And though she did not subscribe to Ishgardian religion, sin was the only word that came to mind when he looked up at her, eyes cloudy with want.

“There is naught I would deny you,” he replied, voice low with other, unspoken promises as he carried her the rest of the way to a bedchamber with a roaring fire in the hearth. Sumire would be curious about Aymeric’s room later, she knew. But for the moment, the bed he laid her on was the only thing other than Aymeric of any real interest.

He stripped off his coat with remarkable alacrity, draping it over a chair rather than tossing it on the floor as she might have done, leaving his shirt on. His boots followed the coat, and then he knelt on the carpet, unlacing her boots and drawing them off more slowly. The backs of his fingers dragged along the bare flesh of her legs, and he looked up, startled.

“Did you expect a highborn Ishgardian lady, swathed in petticoats and thick winter hose?” Sumire lifted a single brow. “I dressed for the battlefield in Gyr Abania.”

Aymeric pressed a kiss to her bare calf. “Then I must needs take responsibility for turning you loose in the snow.”

He covered her with his body, his mouth returning to hers as one hand began a leisurely exploration of her still-clothed body. Sumire wrapped her arms around his neck, tracing the hard muscles of his back, giddy at finally being able to feel them. He’d always looked like an unassailable fortress of an Elezen in his ornate armor. But she was nothing if not determined to do what others considered impossible.

His questing hand cupped her breast, his thumb brushing her nipple through the fabric of her dress, and Sumire gasped into his mouth. He made a low approving sound in the back of his throat, but didn’t linger, moving to cup her bottom, and tease the sensitive spot at the base of her tail. Lightning seared her veins and Sumire arched against him, her tail twitching.

“You’ve taken others with tails to bed,” she managed with a breathless laugh. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

He continued to toy with the base of her tail as he studied her face, eyebrows raised. “Is it?”

“Half-Hyur children are so reviled, I thought Ishgardians only coupled with Au Ra and Miqo'te under extreme duress,” she admitted. “That, ah, mayhap you desired me against your own inclination.”

Aymeric rewarded that comment by flipping their positions so that Sumire sat astride him. He looked up at her with desire bordering on smugness. “An ill-concealed truth of Ishgard: if men delight in suggesting that a woman must exchange her body for influence, it is because they wish she would extend that offer to them. I fear you are the most sought after woman in the Republic.”

She was not unaware of such rumors. They had paired her with both Aymeric and Haurchefaunt, though after Nidhogg’s second demise, she hadn’t heard them repeated with the same frequency.

“You never partook in such rumors.”

“Certainly not.” He lifted the hem of her dress, making deliberate eye contact until she nodded, raising her arms. He pulled it over her head in one swift movement, eyes widening as he took her in. His hands explored her muscles and scars, the patches of scales breaking up her skin with slow deliberation, as if determined to memorize her. “I am not ashamed to admit I desire you. I would have done so before the inquisition if called upon.”

“Surely they would not have-” But she couldn’t finish the sentence. The inquisition had been ruthless in the execution of its duty, expansive in what it considered the scope of its concerns. A well-placed rumor, spread by an unfriendly faction of Heaven’s Ward, might have painted Aymeric as the next Shiva, wont to lay down with dragons. They might have pointed to her scales and horns as proof, despite there being no proven link between Au Ra and dragons.

Sumire flushed, imagining him admitting to his attraction in that terrible place, at a time when it would have been a secret to her. Likely he would have demanded trial by combat to demonstrate that it was no proof of a fondness for dragonkind. It was easy to picture how worried she would have been for him, and then embarrassed to face him when he emerged the victor.

She covered his hands with hers, guiding them under her smalls to cup her breasts. “You would have told me afterwards that you had no intention of imposing upon me,” she said, her voice high and breathy as he teased her nipples between thumb and forefinger. “That I was free to put your words entirely out of my mind.”

“Yes.”

Sumire leaned close, her lips brushing against his ear. “I fear I would have imposed upon you at the earliest opportunity.”

Aymeric shuddered beneath her, unfastening her smalls and freeing her breasts. “Oh?” It seemed all he could manage, his lips soon returning to exploring her bare skin.

“In your office, I think,” she continued, sliding forward until he took a nipple in his mouth, drawing another moan out of her. “Mayhap I would have sat on your desk, spreading my legs for you. Have you imagined it?”

“Yes.” He said it like a prayer, as if in supplication before her. Begging, but for what, she did not know. 

Sumire reached down to cup him through the fabric of his trousers, and the sound he made sent a rush of liquid heat through her core. “Or mayhap I would kneel beneath the desk, hidden from view as I took you into my mouth. But the work of the Lord Speaker is endless. It cannot stop for the small matter of pleasure…”

Aymeric flipped them again without warning, at last removing his shirt to bare his muscled torso. Scars stood out in stark relief, some resembling claw marks. Others, however, were newer, and clearly the result of blades and burning irons. Evidence of the torture he endured, in exchange for demanding the truth. Sumire traced the curve of his pectorals, the jut of his hips, feathering her fingers over his scars. 

But he would not be distracted. Aymeric’s long fingers delved beneath her remaining smalls, teasing the sensitive skin of her mound. “You have a wicked mouth,” he told her, pupils blown wide. “Is this why you guard your words so carefully?”

“You have discovered my secret,” she said, guiding his hand lower. “But I do not hear you denying these lurid fantasies.”

He drove a finger into her without warning, and Sumire arched against him with a cry. The heat building within her intensified as he curled his finger, his thumb stroking her clit in a steady, inexorable rhythm. Relentlessly. Ruthlessly, as if determined to wring every last bit of pleasure out of her.

“There is naught to deny,” he said, his voice coming to her through the haze of sensation. “There is nowhere in Ishgard I have not imagined you.”

She couldn’t think. Nothing existed beyond his voice, his lips, his fingers, driving her toward the peak. There was fire in her blood, and lightning in her bones. She could do nothing except writhe helplessly, her voice reduced to wordless cries.

If only, a soft voice whispered as she shattered, it could last.

Warm and limp, Sumire sucked in a breath as Aymeric withdrew his finger, her over-sensitive body objecting to the change. Looking down at her with that dreadfully smug smile, he licked his finger and thumb clean.

“You can’t have imagined me everywhere,” she managed in faint protest as the full impact of his words finally reached her. “The Inquisition? The Vault?”

But even as she said it, she knew she was wrong. He’d specifically said he would declare his attraction to her before the inquisition, had circumstances demanded it. And it was not hard to imagine Aymeric restrained by Heaven’s Ward, being tortured for information during his imprisonment in the Vault, turning his mind to other things. Trying to distract himself from the pain, however he could.

“Everywhere,” he insisted, and this time she believed him.

\------------

When Sumire left for Mor Dhona, she said, “I will come home again soon. I promise.”

Aymeric kissed her palm like a man swearing a sacred vow. “I shall be here to welcome you.”

It wouldn’t be home without you, she didn’t manage to say. Next time, she swore. Next time.


End file.
